No fun being a fan of York and Annfield Plain

One is York City, where Norman remains all-time leading scorer with 143 goals in almost 400 games. But they are third bottom of the third division and face Football League extinction on April 1.

"It would be very disappointing," he says guardedly. "It's money that's ruining the game. They say it's at the root of all evil and in football it's true."

The other is Annfield Plain, third bottom of the Wearside League, whose immediate future was secured by an "All Stars" match in December, but for whom survival remains the priority.

The hero of Bootham Crescent was dressing room attendant for that fund-raising match, having relinquished the gateman's regular duties on the grounds that at Annfield Plain the post was almost redundant.

"It was a perishing cold day. People kept coming into the dressing room to tell us to watch a bit of the match, but I insisted I was quite happy where I was," says Norman, 71 next month.

A fortnight ago, a gale - ill wind, indeed - broke off two goal posts at the base. "There just always seems to be something," he says.

Born in Alnwick, though he can't remember living there, he moved to Stanley as a nipper and played, once, for West Stanley in the old North Eastern League.

During RAF service he made eight first team appearances for Hull City. Demobbed, he chose York because he could play part time, train alone at Annfield Plain, travel to matches and continue to work - then as now - as a shoe repairer.

Though still a Plain man and proud of it, he spent 12 seasons with City, 1954-66, none as memorable as the first. The Minstermen - known temporarily as the Happy Wanderers after the number one hit of the day - reached the FA Cup semi-final as a Third Division North side, finally losing to Newcastle United in a Roker Park replay.

They were so good, York Co-op even gave the side free boots. "Oh aye," says Norman, "perks."

In the first round they'd beaten non-league Scarborough, among the clubs now offering City a ground share, in the third won 2-0 at the Blackpool of Matthews, Mortensen and Jimmy Mudie.

For the fourth round, 15,000 fans tight packed into Bishop Auckland's Kingsway ground saw the amateurs lose 3-1; Wilkinson himself scored twice in the next game, victory by the same score over Spurs.

"The most classic football match of all time," reported the York-based Yorkshire Evening Press, unashamedly.

"We were a canny side in those days. It didn't matter if the other team scored three, we always thought we could get four," says Norman, still popping down to Crook to help out his mate Jonty Raine - hero of North Bitchburn cricket club - in his shoe repairing business.

"There's not the work there was," he says. "People today seem to be able to buy a £100 pair of shoes then toss them away when they wear a bit."

Notts County managed just one in the quarter-final at Meadow Lane and lost, 2-1; in the semi-final at Hillsborough, Vic Keeble scored for the Magpies, Arthur Bottom for York. The special train fare from York to Sheffield was 8/6d, return.

Though generally content to watch Annfield Plain, and football on television - "Newcastle's pitch was two colours on Saturday, green and brown, Annfield Plain's is better by a street" - he watches York twice a season, hopes to take in the last game of the present campaign in the company of former team-mate Gordon Brown, who has had a triple heart by-pass.

On Saturday, 800 protestors marched through York city centre.

The Save Our City campaign had begun, though it could cost a new owner £4.5m to buy club and ground - once described in Simon Inglis's Football Grounds of Great Britain as "dull, without a single absurdity."

"They've even been offered a ground share at Chesterfield but that's just barmy," says Norman. "York City need to be in York. They might as well pack up if they're not.

"Friends in the city tell me that there are one or two people interested, and I really hope something comes of it.

"I've had enough worrying to do this season with Annfield Plain. I could really do without York, an' all."

Alan Wright - familiar broadcaster, after dinner speaker and man about Hartlepool - was among NTL's guests at the Newcastle-Leeds match on Saturday. As usual, he lost his little flutter on the outcome.

His wife Joan was rather more fortunate - a fiver at 5-1 on Alan Smith to score the first goal but another and another at 18-1 on the Mags to win 3-1. Mrs Wright left £145 richer. "Beginner's luck," said Alan.

John Kirk, remembered at several Northern League football clubs as a solid full back and at Thornaby cricket club as a long-serving batsman - 103 not out in his last appearance, 1997, for the thirds - looked in yesterday to buy a couple of copies of the Northern League's millennium history.

His best memory over the couple of beers which followed may have been of playing for Shildon against Bishop Auckland, when the Bishops were managed by a young former guardsman called Lawrie McMenemy.

"You're the worst full back I've ever seen in my life," said McMenemy afterwards. That Shildon had won 3-1 was, of course, irrelevant.

Jim Jennings, retired Durham polliss and man about New Ferens Park, seeks the column's help in settling a bet with "one of the old codgers I drink with."

The codger in question reckons that in the 50s and 60s it cost as much to get into the pictures in North Road as it did to watch a match at Roker Park. Jim supposes the match to have been much more expensive.

The loser pays for the other's drinks all night. Jim's offered to "share" the winnings. Can anyone help?

Sports minister Richard Caborn attends a conference in Gateshead on January 24 aimed at explaining what the government is doing to promote grass roots sport, particularly football, in the North-East.

"An additional aim is to emphasise the need for substantial investment and improvement in local sport in the region," says Gateshead Sunday League chairman Joe Howe, Shildon lad originally.

Parks are now generally deserted on Saturday afternoons, adds Joe, with leagues either reducing in numbers or folding altogether.

The conference, open to anyone from grass roots sport, runs from 6.30-9.30pm. Details from Mike Newton at Gateshead Borough Council, 0191-433-3000.

Friday's column on Dirty Hoggy and the glory days - male and female - of West Auckland particularly interested Alan Hogg, in Bishop Auckland. "I've always been very proud, ask my friends, that my great great uncle was Charlie 'Dirty' Hogg," he says.

Lance Hogg, Alan's grandad, always reckons that the ladies in the family were every bit as able footballers as the men folk. Since they were the fairer sex, of course, the soubriquet may have been different.

Alan, in truth, is something of a hero himself. In one of Britain's great good beer deserts, he is a member of the Wear Valley sub-branch of the Campaign for Real Ale.

THE three Newcastle United managers who succeeded Charlie Mitten (Backtrack, January 11) were not Joe Harvey, Gordon Lee and Richard Dinnis as everyone supposed.

Between Mitten and Harvey was Norman Smith, club trainer for 23 years and 64 years old when appointed to his first senior managerial position in October 1961. He retired the following summer after United finished 11th in the second division.

Readers are today invited to name the sport which forbids any competitor from playing left handed. The column returns, with a trip to London in search of a long lost hero, on Friday.

Published: Tuesday, January 15, 2002